Baroness Amos: The shootings of Dadly Lupesya and Nashaz Sakala took place in 2001 during rioting over the re-allocation of funding for road building and that of Epiphania Bonjesi in May 2004 during rioting at the time of elections in May 2004. Following the election, the Minister of Home Affairs confirmed to DfID that it was the government of Malawi's intention to inquire into the shootings in May 2004. He has since advised that investigations are on-going. The Malawi Government have no plans to reopen enquiries into the earlier shootings at present.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My honourable friend the Minister for Citizenship, Immigration and Nationality has asked Stephen Shaw, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, to undertake an independent investigation into the allegations of racism and mistreatment of detainees at Oakington and during escort. GSL, who manage and operate the centre at Oakington, have also mounted an internal investigation into these allegations.

Lord Avebury: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What representations they propose to make on the cases of the Turkish Parliamentarians, Merve Kavakc"i and Leyla Zana and others, which were initially considered by the Inter-Parliamentary Union in 1994 and 2001 respectively, in the light of Turkey's commitment to the Copenhagen principles.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961 provides that a country may freely appoint its own nationals as members of the diplomatic staff of its diplomatic mission. However, the consent of the receiving state is required where a person is a national of the country he is appointed to represent and also a national of the receiving country or is a national only of the receiving state. Whether or not a person holds the citizenship of a third country is not relevant to his or her acceptance as a member of a mission. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office would not consider British nationality a bar to the appointment of a person to the diplomatic mission of a country of which they are also nationals. As indicated in my reply to the noble Lord on 10 January 2005 (Official Report, col. WA 3–WA 4), we estimate that fewer than 10 members of diplomatic missions in London hold British citizenship, but that accurate details could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
	The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961 also provides that receiving states may reserve the right to consent to the appointment of a third country national, who is not also a national of the sending country, to the diplomatic staff of a mission. Any such request would be considered on its merits. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is not aware of any current appointments that would fall into this category.
	The appointment of other categories of staff (administrative and technical and service) at diplomatic missions is not subject to any nationality considerations.

Lord Bach: There is no process or plan to formally adopt European Union standards for defence procurement. The use of standards in the United Kingdom is normally on a voluntary basis so the Ministry of Defence does not specifically "adopt" standards. Instead, it seeks to ensure that its project managers select the most appropriate standard to meet their requirements from the full range of civil, commercial and military standards in accordance with an order of preference or hierarchy. This hierarchy gives preference to a British standards implementation of a European standard.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: The Office for National Statistics, in their publication International Service Transactions of the Film and Television Industries, 2003, estimate that exports of services by UK film companies were £657 million in 2002 and £633 million in 2003. Figures for 2004 are due to be published in October 2005.

Lord McColl of Dulwich: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	How they consider that the target of people not having to wait longer than 13 weeks for an outpatient appointment, by the end of December 2005, will be reached for those requiring indoor/outdoor electric wheelchairs and specialised wheelchair seats.

Lord Warner: The Department of Health does not hold information on mortality or morbidity rates attributable to the treatment of varicose veins by surgery. Of 41,608 discharges from National Health Service hospitals in 2003-04 following varicose vein surgery, there was one who died in hospital. As in the case of mortality rates within 30 days of surgery, which are available for some higher risk treatments such as heart surgery, the mortality may not be directly attributable to the surgery. Information on cause of death (available from deaths registered with the Office for National Statistics) does not specify which are attributable to specific medical treatments. There is no centrally collected data on the comparative results of different treatments.

Lord Fearn: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	How many English beaches are listed as sites of scientific interest.

Lord Whitty: English Nature maintain data on sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs) in England. It is able to analyse these data in a variety of ways such as according to habitat type, location or condition, or cross reference it with other data sets. There is, however, no standard definition of a beach or a definitive list of all beaches in England. Therefore, no comprehensive data are currently available on English beaches with which to cross reference the data on SSSIs. Some 362 SSSIs have part of their area between mean high water and mean low water marks. The total area of these 362 sites is 355,000 hectares and will include large muddy inter-tidal areas such as the Wash and Morecambe Bay, as well as sandy or shingle areas known as beaches. Using data from the Environment Agency, 302 of the designated coastal EU bathing waters are found within 210 SSSIs in England.

Lord Whitty: On 14 March 2005, 2,645 herds were under restriction because of the new zero tolerance policy on overdue bovine TB tests.
	Every effort has been made to ensure clear communication of the policy between the State Veterinary Service (SVS), farmers and Local Veterinary Inspectors (LVI). This has included:
	sending LVIs advance copies of the farmers' guidance booklet TB in Cattle—changes to testing and controls in early October 2004 and sending the final booklet to all registered herd owners in late October;
	Defra issuing press notices highlighting the introduction of the new policy in November 2004 and February 2005; and
	the SVS writing to LVIs in early February reminding them of the introduction of the policy.
	Sufficient financial resources and equipment are available to carry out all anticipated TB testing. The SVS is conducting an exercise to assess shortfalls in LVI resources on a divisional basis and recruiting casual veterinary officers to cover any shortfall.
	We do not hold information on the extent to which communication difficulties between LVIs and farmers may have delayed TB testing.

Lord Whitty: On 29 January 2004 the European Community banned unprocessed feathers from China and restrictions have been extended to other countries as they reported the disease.
	Processed feathers may be imported providing they are cleaned with a steam current and heated to at least 70 degrees. This is considered effective in significantly reducing the quantity of virus, if present, to a negligible level.
	All processed feathers are presented for veterinary inspection upon import where a documentary, identity and sensory check are done.
	Although there is not a ban in place Defra maintain that sufficient controls are in place to prevent any serious risk from imported feathers from affected areas.